


Cosmic Order

by trufflemores



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Supergirl (TV 2015), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: 5.09, AU, Angst, Elseworlds, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Flash Oliver Queen, Gen, Green Arrow Barry, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Meta, Mild inebriation, Multi, reaction fic, snuggles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 11:53:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17100089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trufflemores/pseuds/trufflemores
Summary: 5.09/7.09/3.09.Barry and Oliver almost come to blows at the farm on Earth-38, but Barry has a better suggestion. It still comes to blows.(And then there are snuggles.)





	Cosmic Order

**Author's Note:**

> Good evening, my friends. I come bearing another Superflarrow fic, one that can be read ambiguously as either romantic or platonic. I enjoy it both ways and like writing it ambiguously, and I hope to continue writing it in the future. (And, of course, to provide a truly romantic variance, too.)
> 
> For now, I hope you enjoy.

"I bet Kal would bring us alcohol if we asked nicely."

Oliver narrows his eyes menacingly at Barry, leaning against the porch's railing. "Barry," he says firmly, returning his attention to the tablet in front of him, "focus."

"What? You got a drink."

"It  _didn't work_."

"Technicalities," Barry says, waving a hand dismissively. Insistent, he adds, "He would."

"We don't have time for drinks."

"Says  _The Flash_ ," Barry scoffs. "You have all the time in the world." He ambles closer, planting a shoulder firmly against Oliver's, and saying, "Why do you get to have all the fun?"

Oliver sighs and shoves the tablet into his belt in lieu of a pocket, grabbing Barry's shirt in both hands, lifting him clean off the deck, and giving him one firm shake. "No."

"I thought you two kissed and made up," Lois says skeptically, sauntering onto the porch with a bottle of beer in hand. She takes a seat on a chair and inhales deeply, downing half the drink in one go.

Oliver scowls and lets Barry go. "We weren't fighting."

"Or kissing," Barry adds smartly. "Where'd you get that?" He nods at the bottle and idly snatches the tablet from Oliver's belt, looking at the article thoughtfully. "This is three sentences long."

"ARGUS doesn't exactly deal with demigods on a regular basis," Oliver says peevishly, Flashing the tablet back into his own hands. Barry pouts at him. "Go  _get your own drink_ if you want one."

Beaming, Barry scrambles back inside the house, knowing that it would not be unlike Oliver to revoke his permission.  _I don't need his permission_ , Barry thinks importantly, snatching a beer from the fridge and rejoining the duo on the porch. Popping the lid off with his teeth, he gulps a quarter of it down hungrily, sighing nirvanically. "Ollie," he says. "We're never switching back."

"Okay. Then I  _will_  sleep with Iris."

An audible growl builds in Barry's chest before he suppresses it. Sitting moodily on the porch near Lois' feet, he asks, "Is there really no information on this guy?" He sips the beer and looks up at Oliver expectantly. "Like – not even a suspected identity, a family member, a  _motive_ —"

"As far as ARGUS has been able to determine," Oliver cuts in shortly, "The Monitor is an unclassified entity capable of rewriting reality. He is functionally immortal. And he has no family or friends to speak of."

"Really paints a picture, doesn't it?"

"Functionally immortal," Lois repeats thoughtfully. "Does that mean he's invulnerable, or that he won't die of natural causes?"

"Indeterminate," Oliver quips, tucking the tablet between his belt and hip once again. "We can take our chances if we assume he's not bulletproof, or we can hedge our bets and assume he is."

Barry blinks at him. A rumble of thunder in the distance makes Lois sigh next to him. "I love a good storm," she drawls, kicking up her feet. "This is the kind of weather I was born for."

Barry looks up at her, a faint smile on his lips as he says, "Yeah?" He gets fuzzy about storms, too; the lightning-under-his-skin lives for it. "I'm gonna grab another, you want—?" he abbreviates, waving his empty bottle. Lois smiles back at him, passes him the bottle, and he shoves himself upright and lopes back into the house, returning in scant seconds to his perch. "This tastes exactly the same," he tells Oliver. "You want one?" He holds up a third bottle invitingly.

Oliver glares at him. "Where's Kara?"

"Kal and she are responding to an emergency alert," Lois fills in promptly, kicking her feet up on the porch railing. "Shouldn't take them long."

"How long is—"

"Ollie. Relax. Have a drink."

Voice rising to a pitch Barry didn't think he was capable of, Oliver harps, " _Barry, we are in an alternate universe, can you please focus on the mission at hand for thirty minutes?_ "

Barry slugs down a gulp from his bottle and hiccups, unflappable. "Actually, alternate universes are, like, Earth-1 and Earth-38," he clarifies. "This is more of a … parallel universe? I dunno, what does it mean when you completely rewrite reality?"

"We call it  _recoding_ ," Lois says.

"Recoding," Barry repeats, rolling the name around his tongue. "Recoding." Then, turning to look up at her fully, he asks incredulously, "You have a  _word_ for this?"

Lois laughs, and it's the kind of warm fireside laughter that makes you fall in love. Without asking, Barry knows why Kal loves her. "We prepare for contingencies," she explains. "The government does thought experiments all the time, putting the best and brightest to scenarios just on this side of possible; we do, too."

"Who's we?" Oliver asks, drawn into the conversation in spite of himself. He doesn't move any closer, leaning against the rail.

Lois sips her drink. "The Justice League," she says vaguely.

"The Justice League," Oliver repeats, sounding borderline incredulous.

"Has a nice ring to it," Barry chimes in, taking another sip from his beer. "What's the Justice League?"

Lois smiles enigmatically and takes a long draw from her own beer before holding it off to one side, hand curled around it lazily. "You should know, Flash. You founded it."

Barry blinks at her, surprised, and then looks at Oliver. He looks just as blank. "What do you mean?" Barry asks, redirecting his attention to Lois.

"Tempting as it is to rewrite history," Lois says lightly, a mischievous twinkle in her eye, "I'd like to leave some part of reality unaltered."

"That's probably for the best," Oliver agrees.

Barry pouts. "But if we're already …  _recoding_ things …"

"Barry," Oliver says sternly.

"Aren't you ever curious?" Barry asks him seriously, drawing his knees up to his chest and resting his chin on them.

Oliver levels his flattest look back at Barry. "No."

Barry stares at him, refusing to be the first to blink. A full minute passes. Then two.

Lois drawls, "I didn't realize you boys had such fragile egos."

They both look at her, and then Oliver blinks deliberately. Barry frowns, taking a sip of his drink deliberately before conceding. "My  _ego_  is not fragile," he grumbles. "I just … don't like losing."

"Me neither," Oliver growls, glaring at him.

Barry sighs, pitching back the rest of his drink and rising slowly. "You wanna go, man? I don't want you snapping at my back every time I turn around."

Oliver looks at him contemptuously. He sets the tablet on the railing carefully. He looks at Lois, at the bottles in the middle, and then he Flashes.

Barry is already mid-roll by the time he feels the electricity, lunging upright and plowing a shoulder into Oliver's stomach. He doesn't scramble back and press an offensive, instead throwing his weight into the tackle and holding on. Oliver moves so fast he vibrates in Barry's hold, almost escaping, but Barry grits his teeth and holds on until his shoulders almost give way.

It's purely an endurance test as Oliver strains to free himself from Barry's spine-snapping hold while Barry tries not to let his shaking arms fail him. Then there's a sudden shift and the blur of yellow light throws him aside. He lies flat on the porch, looking up at Oliver with a hint of a smirk on his lips. "That it?" he taunts, daring him to approach. He can spring a trap fifty different ways, but an offensive against  _The Flash_ will never play out well.

Oliver refuses to play, though, stalking over to the tablet and moodily retreating indoors, letting the door thud shut loudly behind him. Letting out a breath, Barry stares at the underside of the porch overhang and asks Lois in a satisfied drawl, "Who won?"

"Me," Lois replies, holding up the third bottle of beer and laughing at his pouting expression. "Kal will get more."

"You've got a strong stomach."

"I'm dating Superman. It's a prerequisite."

"Is it? I would think he'd like someone who let him finish their fries."

Ominously, Lois finishes off the beer, sets the bottle down, and says firmly, "Kal knows better."

"You'd like Iris."

"Hm?"

Barry sighs wistfully, tucking his arms behind his head. "She loves to steal my fries." He feels pleasantly warm, a feeling only enhanced with another distant rumble of thunder. Rather than leaving him wrung out, the aborted fight just feels like a drug in its own right.  _No wonder Oliver wants to fight half of Star City_ , he muses.  _If it feels like this every time, I would, too_. The power, the awareness that he's in total control of himself – it's a rush.

"A kindred spirit," Lois muses, interrupting his reverie. He nods once sagely.

"More ways than one," Barry replies. "She's a journalist, too. Works for the CCPN. She's one of their top writers."

"Oh yeah?" Lois says, smiling. "You should've brought her. I love talking shop."

"We were in a bit of a hurry," Barry admits, genuinely sorry. "Also, she kind of thinks I'm Oliver Queen? So it's … complicated."

"Sounds like it."

"Next time," Barry promises fervently. "You'd love her. Everyone does."

Lois smiles angelically. "I can tell." Then, looking out over the horizon, she announces confidently, "They're back."

Barry sits up to check, and a blur of blue light crosses the sky.

"We brought  _pizza!_ " Kara sings, sliding across the grass like a quarterback landing a touchdown, arms full of pizza boxes. "Where's Oliver?"

"Looking for you," Lois fills in with a dry smile. "He's inside. Any trouble?"

"Yes," Kal says sagely, drifting to the ground and setting down, balancing ten boxes carefully. "I missed you."

Lois smiles, pushing herself out of her chair and sauntering over to him, unloading the top box from his pile and leaping up to give him a quick kiss. "Charmer," she teases.

"I try to be," Kal replies.

* * *

Lying on his stomach, Barry asks peacefully, "The Monitor. Why The Monitor?"

"Presumably?" Kara sits on the couch and rests her feet on the middle of his back. He doesn't move. "Because he monitors the fate of the universe. Universes."

"Multiverse," Barry mumbles helpfully.

"Cosmos," Kal submits, sitting in an armchair, Lois on the arm of it. "You know.  _All_ the multiverses."

Barry turns his head to look at him. "Multi _verses_?"

Kal nods, stroking a hand up and down Lois' back idly. "Yeup."

"Multiverses," Barry repeats.

"That's what he said," Oliver snarks, standing at the window and looking outward. Yellow light seems to radiate from the hands he has pressed to the glass.

"Multiverses, as in the assortment of alternate and parallel universes, or…?"

"It's a bit disingenuous to assume  _our_ multiverse's lifespan encompasses all of reality," Kal explains, tone light, professorial, enjoying himself. "Just like our universe – this little part of our multiverse that we call home – has a beginning and an end, so, too, does the entire multiverse. We're likely not the first, and I'd be just as surprised if we were the last." Shrugging, he admits, "It's just a theory, but it's a sound one."

"Cosmos," Barry repeats, resting his chin on his folded arms.

"Cosmos," Kal agrees.

They mull in silence for a few moments, Kara launching herself from the couch and idling over to Oliver. She shoulder-checks him gently. "Hey."

Oliver doesn't say a word, lowering his hands from the glass but gazing steadily at the rain. Barry can see the golden reflection in his eyes. Oliver inhales deeply before deliberately turning away from the window. "What?"

"We're gonna fix this," Kara says confidently.

Oliver says nothing, stalking away from her. "Yeup," he mimics. Grasping the door, he throws it open and steps outside, letting it shut firmly behind him.

Barry sighs, allowing himself an indulgent moment to just lie on the floor. Oliver has an iron stomach, too, but five beers later and he's  _tired_. He can't remember the last time he's actually been  _tired_ , not just bone-deep exhausted with a mind wide awake but  _tired_  enough to sleep peacefully for hours. He pops his own bubble and lurches to his feet. "I'll go talk to him," he assures Kara, taking a step forward and almost face-planting. She catches him easily. "I've got it," he says, leaning against her as the world realigns.

"I'll come with you," Kara says, and Barry nods agreeably.  _The more, the merrier_.

Lois and Kal's voices fade into oblivion as Kara and he drift out into the rain. Feeling untouchable, Barry looks out at the man standing in the middle of the storm and hawks, "It's a helluva feeling, isn't it?"

Oliver looks at him, eyes ablaze, entire posture radiating  _tension_.

Barry holds out his arms innocently, planting his feet to keep his stance firm. "We can leave whenever you want, big guy. We got what we came for. Remember? The mission?" He says the last part with deliberate pompousness. When Oliver doesn't move, he laughs. "You  _hypocrite_ ," he calls out, not with venom but amusement. "You're enjoying yourself."

"Barry," Kara warns, not knowing that it's fine,  _it's fine_ , as he saunters towards the live wire in the field.

"Prove me wrong."

In a low, warbled voice, Oliver says, " _I don't need to_."

Barry pauses, swaying, observing. A strange sadness settles into his chest as he looks at Oliver, overflowing with  _his_ Speed,  _his_ lightning. Jealousy floods him. "Yeah, you do," he says shortly. "C'mon. We're going home."

"In a minute."

Barry snarls. "Hypocrite," he snaps.

He feels the air rush by him and knows Oliver didn't mean to strike him, alighting in the same spot, seemingly unruffled. It only makes him furious. "Don't toy with me. Hit me or back off."

Another blur, and he expects to be thrown off his feet, relaxing instinctively to take the brunt of a speedster charge, and hears only a mini-thunderclap. It's surreal to see Supergirl holding back The Flash – he almost can't wrap his mind around the image, stepping aside so he can view it in profile. It only lasts a moment, but the impression stays in his mind, gaze sliding to Oliver as he lands on the dirt a handful of feet away.

"Pick on someone your own size," Kara orders.

Oliver picks himself up slowly, glancing at the two of them thoughtfully. His gaze settles on Barry, who looks back coolly, unflinchingly. He Flashes again, and Barry doesn't even see what happens, only the aftermath – Oliver, on his back and wedged half a foot in the dirt, Supergirl hovering above him, ready to attack if he so much as  _twitches_.

"I won't say it twice," she says ominously.

Oliver looks up at her for a moment, contemplating it. Then he pries himself out of his earthen bed and stands, shaking himself off at super-speed. He breathes slowly, deeply, like a bull gearing up for another charge, before turning away. His shoulders lower. The fight sinks out of him. "Okay." Then, inhaling deeply, he adds, "I'm sorry."

"It's the lightning," Barry chimes in, still reeling from the turn in the tides. He doesn't know how to feel about it. Part of him feels wired, too, geared up for a fight that isn't coming.  _I can defend myself_ , he thinks uncharitably, and knows, no matter how hard he fights, how  _well_ he fights, he won't win against The Flash. It tastes bitter on his tongue. "The sooner we leave, the sooner we can fix everything and go back to our normal lives."

Oliver looks at him, really looks at him, the soul-searching gaze that makes Barry want to disappear.  _Don't look at the darkness in me_.

"Okay," is all Oliver says.

Kara sighs and lands, scruffing Barry by the back of the neck, a gesture that is half-friendly, half-threatening. She radiates  _power_. It's astonishing just how much. If mountains could move like humans do, Barry knows, they'd feel something like this. "Good," she says, completely at ease. She releases him a moment later.

He sways, unbalanced, and falls over. Rain dapples his face. It feels so  _good_  he wants to cry, but instead of joy there's a different emotion welling up inside of him.

Sorrow.

There is nothing inside him, no lightning burning in his veins, no Speed Force waiting, listening, ever-present and all-powerful. He is alone, and it hits him like a rock to the chest, and he stares almost beseechingly up at Oliver, looming over him, radiating a different kind of energy altogether. If Kara is strength, Oliver is intangible: a thing that can barely be grasped, a lightning that shifts.

He extends a hand, and Barry takes it. With great ease, Oliver hauls him upright. There is no mistaking the difference: Kara's power is flesh and blood while Oliver's is ethereal. It is like shaking hands with a ghost. He shivers involuntarily. "Let's go home," he reiterates, hunching inward, almost protectively, feeling strangely ill at ease with The Flash and the Girl of Steel.

* * *

_Aftermath, Earth-38._

Barry sighs, setting down the fourth empty box of donuts and declaring, "I could eat Coast City dough all night."

Sitting next to him on the rooftop, Kara grins. "Don't tempt me." She's already polished off six herself, picking over box number seven patiently. "My budget for non-heroic actions is less substantial than your inheritance from Dr. Wells."

Barry scrunches up his nose. "Inheritance. That's an ugly word for it."

"Gift?" Kara tries, swallowing another bite.

Barry shakes his head, taking a bite of a donut, content to indulge himself. "I don't like to spend it," he admits. "The idea that I'm spending his money to make myself happy just makes me feel dirty. Y'know?"

Kara nods sympathetically. "At least it's not just rotting in a bank somewhere? Maybe taking something from a bad person and using it for good is okay."

"That's what I tell myself," Barry says. "Otherwise we'd be sitting back in the office sharing three boxes of donuts with all of your friends."

It's Kara's turn to scrunch up her nose. "I like this better."

"Me too." Barry gulps down another donut, sighing contentedly. Lying on his back, he puts his hands behind his head and stargazes. "God, I haven't felt full in so long. This is so serene."

Kara finishes her box and joins him, resting her head on his shoulder. His Speed purrs travel between them, making her chuckle. "I still don't understand how you do that," she admits.

"Do what?" Barry asks, closing his eyes and basking in the glory of a full stomach.

"Purr."

Barry cracks an eye open to look down at her, but she doesn't bother to lift her head. The vibrations carry almost imperceptibly between them. With a conscious effort, he shoves the Speed Force aside until he has pushed it back far enough to evade its lightning-touch. Abruptly, the night air feels very cool against his skin, and the shivers stop altogether.

"No, don't," Kara says, curling a hand in the fabric of his shirt. "It's nice."

A single full-bodied shiver, and he's back to the same warm vibrations as before. He relaxes, melting with sheer joy at the feeling. "Yeah," he agrees, grateful beyond words for the restoration of his powers, more himself than anything left. "It is."

They lie on the rooftop watching the fuzz of stars attempt to break through the occluding city light noise. "No matter where you went, you could always see the stars on Krypton," Kara muses somberly.

"Yeah?"

Kara nods. "It was a beautiful place."

Barry is soft and silent, listening but not pushing.

"Earth is … warmer than Krypton," Kara goes on obligingly. "Tropical. We only had a handful of places like Keystone on Krypton. Most of it was Antarctic in nature. All of our children knew not to venture too far from the cities, or they'd be lost to the cold, and the creatures that lived in it."

Fascinated, Barry asks, "What kind of creatures?"

A solemnity enters Kara's voice as she reminisces. "Ice breakers. They looked like polar bears. Long claws—" she holds up an arm, indicating the stretch from wrist to elbow – "and deep black eyes. You could hear one coming even from a great distance, but you never saw it until it was on top of you. They were almost mythlike, but every parent who lost a child to one knew they were very real."

Barry remains hushed for a moment, absorbing the idea. "I'm sorry," he finds himself saying.

"For a long time we lived in fear of ice breakers," Kara continues, speaking almost as though he isn't there. The weight of her world presses down on his shoulder, but he doesn't move, bearing it. "There were people who advocated we hunt them, drive them as far from our cities as we could, but they were … incredibly smart. Eerily smart."

The hairs on Barry's arms rise. "You make them sound almost human."

"I'm not entirely sure they weren't." Kara pauses, gazing silently at the shadows of stars. "They were certainly smart enough to avoid any plans we threw at them." She exhales slowly, and then she admits in a tone deeper and sadder than he's ever heard from her, "I never thought I would miss ice breakers."

Barry waits a moment, but Kara doesn't speak. Gently, he prompts, "What happened to them?"

Kara sits up, and Barry mirrors her after a beat, watching as she reaches up to press her hand to her eyes. He leans his shoulder against hers, surprised to feel the tiny, subsurface tremors. "Like everything on Krypton," she says painfully, not removing her hand, "they succumbed to our folly. Every living creature on Krypton died because of Kryptonians. The seasons changed. The snow melted. Eventually even the smartest ice breakers simply fell into the seas and died."

Barry stays silent. "I'm sorry," he says again.

Kara lowers her hand. Her eyes are dry. "Krypton was dying long before it succumbed to cosmic fury," Kara narrates solemnly. "I'm not sure what was left was even worth saving."

Aching with sympathy, Barry says, "It was." Kara looks at him, and he repeats firmly, "If there's even one thing left worth saving, then it's worth it."

"I have so much to lose here," Kara confesses, speaking with such real emotion it makes a lump form in Barry's throat. "I don't know if I'm ready to lose it again. I still dream about Krypton. Every night. It just … it doesn't seem  _real_ that it's not there anymore." Then, bitterly, she amends, "That  _my_ Krypton isn't there. I know that … there are others, in the multiverse," she says, sounding weary. "But … sometimes you miss  _home_ , and not just the idea of it. You know?"

Barry nods. He dares not tell her just how much he has changed his own life through time travel, but when he says, "I know," he means it sincerely.

"I'm happy here," Kara insists, looking at him. "I am."

"It's okay to want more," Barry tells her.

Kara exhales, and he sees her smile at the stars, her eyes a little glassy. "Thank you."

Barry wraps an arm around her, holding her steady.

* * *

Before he leaves Earth-38, Barry takes Kara to a zoo far beyond Keystone City, one with an eclectic assortment of animals that thoroughly enrapture. It isn't the collection as a whole that interests Barry. Leading Kara deliberately towards their destination, he pauses and watches as she approaches the glass, a mass of white fur floating in the distance. With breathtaking ease, it slips up to the window.

Kara puts both hands on the glass, gazing at the polar bear in rapture, and Barry takes a single photo of the two of them.

"Hi," she says softly as the bear moves away before returning in a different pattern. "Hi, sweetie." Crooning, she adds, "Oh, you're so, so beautiful."

It will never be an ice breaker, and Earth will never be Krypton, but Barry watches the peace settle into Kara's shoulders, a sense of cosmic rightness dwelling within her, and knows he has wrought some good in this world.

* * *

_Earth-1_ ,  _Star City_.

Oliver yawns around the fifth drink. Barry expects it, and he still hides a smile behind his own bottle. There's thunder in the distance, and he's feeling warm and charitable as he says, "We should head in."

Oliver doesn't even question it. "We should," he agrees, stout and composed as ever.

He closes his eyes tightly and waits, opening them when Barry doesn't move. "I was thinking we could walk?" Barry suggests lightly. "If that's – okay."

Relief passes Oliver's expression, more open than Barry is used to seeing it. "Okay," he agrees.

The night air is cool, but Barry projects heat like a furnace, and Oliver matches his pace easily. Barry is convinced he could match it blindfolded and hopping along on one leg. "So. Life goes back to normal," he opens.

Oliver exhales. "Life goes back to normal."

Amused at the parroting, Barry tries, "Got any fun plans?"

Suspiciously, Oliver squints at him. "Fun?"

Barry rolls his eyes, nudging Oliver's shoulder. It gives, a little more than he's expecting, as Oliver sways a step before regaining his balance. "You know. Throw a party, marathon a Netflix series, eat an entire can of Pringles in one sitting? Fun?"

"Pringles are disgusting, Barry."

Barry pouts at him. "Oreos?"

Oliver scrunches up his nose a little, an almost imperceptible gesture. Kara is big and open and warm; Oliver is subtle and quiet and cool. He likes the contrast. He suspects Kara likes it, too; knows, at least, that she enjoys the quiet, cool things of the Earth. "That's a terrible combination," Oliver says, oblivious to his inner monologue.

"Have you ever tried it?"

"I don't need to. It's terrible."

"What about milk and Oreos?"

"You ran," Oliver says, deliberating over each word, the softest hint of a slur at the end, "six  _hundred_ miles to ask me if I liked milk and Oreos?"

Barry doesn't miss a beat. "Yes."

Oliver sighs. "I've never tried it."

Barry halts mid-step, looking at Oliver incredulously. "What?"

"I've never tried milk and Oreos," Oliver says patiently, as though  _Barry_ is the one mildly inebriated and not himself. "Only Oreos, plain, and milk, plain."

"I can fix that," Barry says. "I think it's my civil duty to fix that."

"Barry—" Oliver sighs, and stops, and looks at him sternly. If he didn't speak at all, it would be impossible to see just how tired he was. "Barry, please. We've just faced down a cosmic entity capable of rewriting reality, and you're judging me for my taste in Oreos."

Barry grins. "Does seem a little small-picture when you put it that way, doesn't it?"

Oliver scowls at him, and Barry takes pity on him, striding ahead without another word. Not one to be towed, Oliver matches pace and pauses at the door of his apartment. "You can come in if you want," he says, choosing his words carefully. "I don't have company."

It's a strange way of phrasing it, and Barry doesn't question it as he shrugs and follows Oliver congenially into his home. It makes his stomach warm and fuzzy, being invited into  _Oliver's_ home, the starstruck side of him never quite growing past the fact that Oliver Queen was on a first-name basis with him. Oliver, for his part, politely ignores Barry as he maneuvers around in the semi-dark space and sheds coat and shoes, slouching onto a couch with tiger-like leisure.

Not a polar bear, Barry thinks, amused. But close.

 _Ice breaker_.

There's not much room on the couch, but Barry finds it, making himself comfortable. Oliver knows how to furnish a place. He sighs, sinking into the cushions, savoring the weight and softness. There's a long pause, the only sound the distant hum of the city. Then without speaking, almost without daring to breathe, Oliver shuffles around and settles against Barry, with the same careless ease as a tiger lounging on its owner.

 _A tiger would probably kill me_ , Barry reflects, and has to suppress a hysterical giggle at the immediate rejoinder:  _Oliver would too_.

Retaining the greatest amount of dignity he can, he doesn't move as Oliver Queen cuddles into him, heavy and warm but lacking the sharp edges Barry expects. Almost afraid to break the tentative thing called peace between them, Barry lets his own eyes slide shut, embracing the feeling. It's nice. He relaxes, slipping almost unconsciously into Speed-purring.

Oliver, breathing slow and even, doesn't remark on it.

Thunder rumbles in the great distance, and Barry exhales heavily, so happy he could cry.

 _I won't lose it,_ he thinks, aching to protect both cities, simultaneously – Keystone  _and_ Star – while somehow managing his own duties in Central.  _I won't_.

He can make no promises, but he tries to, anyway.

For them, he always tries.


End file.
